Updated: Florida police report cites speed in deadly student crash
Three students died in the wake of the April 21 accident on a darkened Florida highway; a fourth was gravely injured.
A Florida police report says a Acton-Carlisle High School student may have been driving as fast as 110 miles per hour at the time of the April accident that ended his life and that of two classmates.
The Florida Highway Patrol report obtained by The Acton Bridge on Tuesday said student Jimmy McIntosh, 18, of Carlisle, was traveling “at an excessive speed” in a posted 65-mile-per-hour area when the SUV he was driving collided with a tractor-trailer.
The crash report identified the tractor-trailer driver as 19-year-old Kadyn Dewayne Ainsworth of DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and said he failed to yield the right of way as he performed a U-turn.
McIntosh and fellow CCHS senior Hannah Wasserman, 17, died shortly after the April 21 crash on a darkened highway in the Florida panhandle. Maisey O’Donnell, 18, was pronounced dead in a Boston hospital on April 24; a fourth student, also 18, was critically injured.
The students were just days into their spring vacation.
McIntosh’s family could not immediately be reached, nor could Wasserman’s. The O’Donnells declined comment through a law firm.
Ongoing investigation
Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Jason King said the homicide unit’s investigation of the fatal crash on Highway 98 was ongoing and could take at least six months.
He said any charges would be determined after the investigation.
“A lot more goes into this type of investigation and it takes more time so we can be most accurate with our findings,” he said.
Ainsworth did not immediately return a Bridge reporter’s call. Neither he nor his 23-year-old passenger was injured in the crash, according to the police report, details of which were also reported Tuesday by The Boston Globe.
After the collision, the 2023 Hyundai Palisade carrying the students crossed the median and the eastbound lanes before finally coming to a halt at a treeline.
The report said the injured student was in the front passenger seat. O’Donnell and Wasserman were seated in the second row.
The crash report says McIntosh was not tested for alcohol or drugs. In a section for suspected alcohol or drug use, the reporting trooper wrote “unknown.”
The trooper said Ainsworth was not distracted, and authorities didn’t suspect alcohol or drug use. Ainsworth still underwent blood tests for substances, according to the report, which listed those results as “unknown.”
The students’ car was registered to an address in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, just under 20 miles west of the crash site. The vehicle owner did not immediately respond to Bridge inquiries.
The students’ deaths, which came just months before graduation, sent the Acton and Carlisle communities into deep mourning.
School administrators moved to provide enhanced counseling services and other support measures that will continue through the close of the academic year.
Schools superintendent Laurie Hunter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The McIntosh and O’Donnell families held funerals earlier this month. Wasserman’s family said they would hold a private service.
— Dakota Antelman and Celeste Katz Marston
May 21, 10:26 a.m. This story has been updated.
